Reader Response Draft 3
Morozov (2015) claims in his article “who’s the true enemy of internet
freedom – China, Russia, or the US” that US is the true enemy of internet
freedom. Although China and Russia censor and control internet freedom by
imposing more restrictions on US based company and storing their domestic
user’s data, they only do so to protect internal technological sovereignty and
minimise US influence. However, US government aims to monitor and collect data
from US based companies regardless of location.
However, it might be too naïve to accuse US of being the “true enemy” of
internet freedom and simply believing that China and Russia’s actions are
justified. In my opinion, Chinese and Russian
governments use these restrictions to control their citizen's freedom of speech on the internet and manipulate their ideas through the transmission of information. The
restriction on Chinese and Russian internet citizens are more severe than just
collection of personal data. All these
policies adopted by the individual governments are equally damaging to internet
freedom.
Both countries’ governments have previous track records of controlling
media and freedom of speech in their respective counties. according to E.H (2013) China has two major
practices that control its citizens’ interaction on the internet: The Great Firewall,
as it is called by domestic and overseas users, which limit access Chinese
user’s access to external websites, and Golden Shield, an internal system to
monitor Chinese citizen’s movements on the net. Both measures serve more than
just protecting internal technological sovereignty.
Evidence indicates that information are being manipulated by the Chinese
government before reaching its citizens. One perfect example will be the series
of riots occurred in Tibet during the period 2008 to 2012, whereby information
are made readily available earlier and more accurately overseas as compared to
within the Great Firewall. Other measures that the Chinese government adopted
includes banned word on search engines and strict censorship about political
issues.
Russia, on the other hand, faced different criticism after imposing a
package of sweeping new restrictions on internet and blogging. Razumovskaya (2014) stated that users are forced
to reveal their personal information and imposed stricter control over
dissemination of information by set a more harsh punishment for companies and
individuals. Such restrictions
might have negative repercussions on internet based industries and affect
businesses that rely on online information in one way or another.
Russia government’s actions potentially decrease Russia’s value to
non-Russian companies and affecting the competitiveness and connectivity of
Russia as a whole in the global market. By doing so, not only the internet
freedom, but other internet related benefit will be affected.
Morozov argued in his article that Russia’s action can be considered a
domestic policy and it is not as “evil” as US’s actions. However, I will like
to point out that the nature of the actions are almost identical and we cannot
jump into conclusion purely by comparing the scale of the affected population.
The line between internet freedom and causing chaos online is becoming
blurred, it is necessary for the governments to regulate and monitor the
internet to keep our cyberspace safe, but excessive control will definitely
infringe user’s privacy. Perhaps, governments are still experimenting how best
to balance both side to achieve optimum outcome.
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References
E.H. (2013, April
21st). How does China censor the internet? Retrieved from
The Economist:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/04/economist-explains-how-china-censors-internet
RAZUMOVSKAYA, O.
(2014, April 29th). Russian Parliament Approves New Law Restricting the
Internet. Retrieved from The Wall Street Journal:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304163604579531460215555456
